Michelle Malkin (vaguely non-white woman-child, raving lunatic, child stalker...that Michelle Malkin) seems to have a thing about schools offering Yoga instruction, in many cases in lieu of PE which has been dropped as a requirement at woefully too many schools. But like so many topics that catch her shiny-object attention span she only has two speeds: benign neglect or Red Bull-fueled ragegasm. Guess which one?

Yoga classes are now a requirement for Needham high -school seniors. To further ease the supposed burden on overworked students, Richards has “asked teachers to schedule homework-free weekends and holidays.” Just what we need to turn around those one in ten schools that are now considered “dropout factories,” huh? Can’t cut it in the classroom? Bend like a bridge, take five deep, slow breaths, and all will be dandy.

Actually Michelle might want to try that "bend like a bridge, take five deep, slow breaths" sometime. It certainly couldn't hurt. But then...but then, Michelle goes a bridge too far:

“A lot of these kids,” lectures Principal Richards, “are being held hostage to the culture.” No kidding. When the New York Times invited one of Richards’s students to recommend stress-reduction techniques, he ended with this suggestion:

“Watch a short clip on YouTube (as long as you are not addicted). The amazing and often funny feats on the site are inspiring and often leave you feeling, ‘Hey I want to do that!’ This is a great attitude to have towards your work.”

Watch feats of stupidity on YouTube.(tb: her emphasis) Yeah, that’ll do wonders for American student achievement.

Sorry, but I have to do it. I just have to...

T minus 5

4

3

2

We have liftoff...sort of:

That may not do much for student achievement, but a whole lot of teenaged girls probably have much better feelings about their self-image after watching it.

n July 2003, the AP reported: “PHOENIX (AP) — The FBI alerted law enforcement agencies last month that an al-Qaeda terrorist now in detention had talked of masterminding a plot to set a series of devastating forest fires around the western United States...."

Four-time #1 bestselling author and veteran television news journalist Bill O'Reilly has more than 5 million copies of his books in print to date! His first book for younger fans, The O'Reilly Factor for Kids, held the honorable distinction of being the #1 bestselling nonfiction title for kids in 2005 according to Nielsen's The Book Standard.

Back again with a dialogue on rights that will have everyone talking, O'Reilly and his coauthor Charles Flowers dole out the kind of blunt, cogent, commonsense commentary you count on them for. Together they explore timely questions being debated in and out of courts today including:

Can a kid wear an antigay T-shirt on campus?

Is it permissable to yell "More ice tea, motherfucker!" in the cafeteria?

Does a school newspaper have the right to bad-mouth a principal?

Does an employee have the right to sue her pervy boss?

Does a mother have the right to eavesdrop on her daughter's telephone conversations?

When a boy calls up a girl, is it proper for him to ejaculate first while on the phone or should he be a gentleman and wait until after the girl achieves la petite mort before he shakes his boy meat like a frosty can of Reddi-wip?

Should a boy tell a girl that she has "spectacular boobs" on the first date or the second?

Loofah or falafel?

How old should a boy be before attending his first Thailand sex show? 18? 16? 12?

How many times should a teen tell their parents "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" before screaming "I hate you, you stupid drunken cow!" and storming away from the dinner table?

Some of the answers will surprise you. Some will empower you. All of them will make you think...."Wow. He's an asshole."

Wouldn't it just be easier to get a show of hands from Republican politicians who really reallyaren't gay?

State Representative Richard Curtis says he's not gay, but police reports and court records indicate the Republican lawmaker from southwestern Washington dressed up in women's lingerie and met a Medical Lake man in a local erotic video store which led to consensual sex at a downtown hotel and a threat to expose Curtis' activities publicly.

As someone noted before, the Conservative Kink bar has been set so high, that if you aren't found dangling from a ceiling beam wearing a minimum of two wetsuits with a dildo shoved up your butt, you're considered kind of vanilla.

If John Murtha were a businessman, he'd be the biggest employer in this town.

The powerful U.S. congressman has used his clout on Capitol Hill to create thousands of jobs and steer billions of dollars in federal spending to help his hometown in western Pennsylvania recover from devastating floods and the flight of its steelmakers.

John Murtha and Johnstown, Pa., have been living high on the hog for decades.

Yup, I hear tell that some folks in Johnstown are making almost $45,000 a year with two cars parked in the garage of their very own home. Why, in fact:

Johnstown has yet to find its economic footing for the 21st century. In 2003, US Census data showed that Johnstown was the least likely city in the United States to attract newcomers, demonstrating the weak opportunities provided by the local manufacturing and service economies. At the same time, Johnstown does show signs of recovering from its decades-long slumber. New or recent construction in the downtown and adjacent Kernville neighborhoods signal the increasing potential for Johnstown's service economy. Johnstown remains a regional medical, educational, and communications center. Healthcare now provides the bulk of employment opportunities within the city.

[...]

The median income for a household in the city was $20,595 and the median income for a family was $28,279. Males had a median income of $26,163 versus $19,791 for females. The per capita income for the city was $13,236. 24.6% of the population and 18.9% of families were below the poverty line. Of the total population, 37.5% of those under the age of 18 and 12.6% of those 65 and older were living below the poverty line.

I can't tell if they're Lucky Duckies or Lucky Piggies living "high on the hog" like that.

A recent Carnegie Mellon study used higher mathematics to answer the question: if you want to be informed about what the entire blogosphere is talking about, but you can only read 100 blogs (out of the millions available), which blogs should you read?

[...]

You can see the website for the study here and a PDF file for the report can be found here.

The study was "awarded the best student paper award at the ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining" which is like, I don't know, a virgin convention or something. The .pdf contains stuff like this:

(click to read smart people mumbo-jumbo)

Hugh Hewitt, who wrote the book Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That's Changing Your World came in 78th. He lost valuable points due to excessive man-boobs. The footnote is on page seven of the pdf.

Congratulations to former Congressman Henry Hyde who will be the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom at a White House ceremony on Monday, November 5, 2007:

Henry J. Hyde has served America with distinction. During his career in the House of Representatives, he was a powerful defender of life and a leading advocate for a strong national defense and for freedom around the world . Additionally Congressman Hyde is credited with starting what came to be known in the 60's as the "Sexual Revolution" when, as a fledgling member of the Illinois House, he carried on a three year affair with a married mother of three. (see: MHHLF, Mother Henry Hyde Liked to Fuck)

Noted matchbook collector, James Lileks on staying ahead in a fast-paced world:

Tautologies aside, I’ve noticed this: the more elaborate the grocery store promotion, the less likely I’ll care. If the store has Ten Cents Off Everything Day, I’ll show up. If they ask me to produce paperwork or enroll in a program, forget it.

Later that day column:

But that’s not why I brought this up. Question for any graphic designers among the buzzerati: can you name the Bonus Days typeface? It’s also used in the Littlest Pet Shop toy line. It’s almost seven years old, and I’m surprised to see it’s still out there.

Hey, some people are interested in string theory, others in... string.

Note: I got off of the Lileks beat some time ago when I received an email from him that simply said: "Be happy in life" which I took to be some kind of Curse of the Forehead People. So I thought it best to cool my jets. These days you just can't be too careful...

First Lady Laura Bush said Sunday that she is much more involved in policy than many people think and then went to bat for her husband on children’s health care and foreign policy.

Calling the state children’s health insurance program (SCHIP) “a perfect issue” for Democrats to demagogue on, Bush waded into largely uncharted public territory for her by taking exception to the party that opposes the president.

The first lady appeared genuinely upset about the Democrats’ tactics on the issue.

“It’s really easy to blame people for so-called voting against children,” Bush said in an interview on Fox News Sunday. The first lady went on to say that the bill would cover children who are not poor and added that the program is often used to cover adults.

“The president is very anxious to work with Congress and to come up with something that both he and they can be proud of,” she said.

Bush also insisted the perception of her staying out of her husband’s policies is false.

“The fact is I’ve been involved for a long time in policy, and I think I just didn’t get a lot of coverage on it,” Bush said. “I was stereotyped as being a certain way because I was a librarian and a teacher…which are considered traditional women’s careers.”

Bush has been most involved with foreign policy in Africa and Burma. She said African women recently told her daughter Barbara that the president saved their lives.

She sidestepped a question about whether she weighs in on the president’s policies toward Iraq and Iran, shifting the focus back to Africa and Burma.

US Soccer President Sunil Gulati reached a swift decision to dismiss Greg Ryan as US Women’s Team coach, but he wasn’t as fast as one of his predecessors. In 1998, Alan Rothenberg took just four days to secure coach Steve Sampson’s resignation after the final Men’s National Team game in that year’s disastrous World Cup campaign.

One of the players on the squad at the time, Eric Wynalda, saw essential parallels between the two situations.

“You have a coach in both cases who basically destroys a team’s chances to be successful through terrible choices and decisions,” said Wynalda.

Ryan himself rejected the association, pointing out that the Women’s Team finished third in the competition. Yet for a country that had previously won more World Cups than any other, it was an undeniably disappointing tournament.

“We do bring a different expectation and standard to our women’s program,” said Gulati Monday during the media call that announced Ryan’s departure.

It should be a mark of pride for the women’s program that one distinction from the men is the higher standard of expected achievement. What’s troubling is that it isn’t the only ways the squads are dissimilar -- and other comparisons aren’t so flattering.

Of all the decisions Ryan made during the competition, the most puzzling was his choice to bench starting goalkeeper Hope Solo and replace her with little-used Briana Scurry against Brazil, the decision being justified by Scurry’s historic success versus the South Americans.

“To me, that was like having a pitcher who, at the height of his game, just pitched three shutouts, and then the manager says, ‘I know you’ve had four days rest and this is your rotation, but I’m going to go with someone else on a hunch’,” said Wynalda. “Then their team gets lit up for eight runs in the first inning. That athlete has to sit there and watch it happen.”

In a statement after that semifinal match, Solo fumed in disagreement over Ryan’s call.

“The way she reacted was completely human,” Wynalda said. “To go through something like that is horrible.”

What followed escalated the drama. Solo was barred from team meals, banned from the third-place match versus Norway, and denied the chance to be present during the FIFA medal ceremony. She was not allowed on the team flight back to the United States, and was instead given a separate ticket to travel alone.

Having more than a passing acquaintance with some of the players on the women's team (the L&T Casey was a ball girl for the now-defunct San Diego Spirit) I can say with some confidence that a lot of the problems with the team stem from an influential core group of players from the glory days who combine the worst of Heathers meets All About Eve. Commentator Julie Foudy being a good example.

I just want everyone to know that I had the good taste to neither write a post about nor link to the video of Pamela Geller Oshry's "Sharia" video. I did this because it makes the Malkin cheerleader video look like Schindler's List.

You'll just have to go find it for yourself. I will not be held responsible.

I think it's kind of adorable that people on both sides the aisle are appalled/stunned/flabbergasted/amused/deeply deeply disappointed that FEMA decided to pull off a fake press conference regarding the California fires (officially dubbed Wildfire 2007 by the various local Action News former communication majors). But I remember a time when we were entranced by the pixiesh charms ofKaren Ryan:

It is the kind of TV news coverage every president covets.

"Thank you, Bush. Thank you, U.S.A.," a jubilant Iraqi-American told a camera crew in Kansas City for a segment about reaction to the fall of Baghdad. A second report told of "another success" in the Bush administration's "drive to strengthen aviation security"; the reporter called it "one of the most remarkable campaigns in aviation history." A third segment, broadcast in January, described the administration's determination to open markets for American farmers.

To a viewer, each report looked like any other 90-second segment on the local news. In fact, the federal government produced all three. The report from Kansas City was made by the State Department. The "reporter" covering airport safety was actually a public relations professional working under a false name for the Transportation Security Administration. The farming segment was done by the Agriculture Department's office of communications.

[...]

Karen Ryan cringes at the phrase "covert propaganda." These are words for dictators and spies, and yet they have attached themselves to her like a pair of handcuffs.

Not long ago, Ms. Ryan was a much sought-after "reporter" for news segments produced by the federal government. A journalist at ABC and PBS who became a public relations consultant, Ms. Ryan worked on about a dozen reports for seven federal agencies in 2003 and early 2004. Her segments for the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of National Drug Control Policy were a subject of the accountability office's recent inquiries.

The G.A.O. concluded that the two agencies "designed and executed" their segments "to be indistinguishable from news stories produced by private sector television news organizations." A significant part of that execution, the office found, was Ms. Ryan's expert narration, including her typical sign-off - "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting" - delivered in a tone and cadence familiar to television reporters everywhere.

Last March, when The New York Times first described her role in a segment about new prescription drug benefits for Medicare patients, reaction was harsh. In Cleveland, The Plain Dealer ran an editorial under the headline "Karen Ryan, You're a Phony," and she was the object of late-night jokes by Jon Stewart and received hate mail.

"I'm like the Marlboro man," she said in a recent interview.

In fact, Ms. Ryan was a bit player who made less than $5,000 for her work on government reports. She was also playing an accepted role in a lucrative art form, the video news release. "I just don't feel I did anything wrong," she said. "I just did what everyone else in the industry was doing."

Remember: Those who do not remember the history of the Bush Administration are doomed to see them repeat it.

Let's see...the Red Sox are in the World Series and Tagg invokes the dreaded "we":

A few of you have asked how I was able to watch the debate Sunday night as well as the Red Sox game. I had the hotel tape record the game for me and I watched it early (very early) Monday morning. The hard part was keeping people like Ben Ginsberg from telling me the score. And I started every interview in the spin room after the debate with, "If you tell me the score of the game, you will die. What's your next question?" My Dad was getting score updates while he was on the stage of the debate, and he got back in time afterwards to watch the magical 7th and 8th innings when we went from a 3-2 (should have been 3-3) lead to an 11-2 romp.

No, Tagg. Unless you were warming up in the bullpen or down in the clubhouse reviewing tape before you were due to pinch hit... you are not part of "we" even if you do have a cool warm-up jacket that you got for Christmas. And put your damn hat on right. Also, would it kill you to buy a fitted instead of an adjustable?

In the course of visiting our son and my brother in California, Mitt and I have always been struck by the strength of character of California's residents. Californians have faced these types of natural disasters in the past and have demonstrated the strength and determination to persevere and rebuild their homes and lives. The families affected by these fires and the courageous public servants fighting the fires will be in the thoughts and prayers of the Romney family.

Thanks Ann, You still not going to get our electoral votes, but we appreciate the thought.

Fortunately for Matt (who lives in San Diego) he won't have to demonstrate his strength and determination and perseverance and rebuild his home. That means his neighbors won't have to put up with looking at the MittMobile up on blocks on his lot for the next nine months.

I don't drink, I've never smoked a cigarette in my life, I don't take anything stronger than Sudafed. I've even had times when I have been prescribed Vicodin and I still don't use it because it makes me feel stupid(er). And, no, you can't have it, so don't ask. But there may come a day when I will want something that will ease my pain without side-effects before I take that stroll down oblivion way. That's why this is stupid.

Robin Prosser, a Missoula woman who struggled for a quarter century to live with the pain of an immunosuppressive disorder, tried years ago to kill herself. Last week, she tried again. This time, she succeeded.

After her earlier attempt failed, Prosser wound up in even more trouble after investigating police found marijuana in her home. She used the marijuana to help cope with pain.

That marijuana charge was eventually dropped in an agreement with the city of Missoula, and Prosser had reason to rejoice in 2004 when Montanans passed a law allowing medical use of the drug.

She was a high-profile campaigner for the Montana Medical Marijuana Act, and like others, she was dismayed when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that drug agents could still arrest sick people using marijuana, even in states that legalized its use.

I am tired of being patient with you nannies and your stupid self-serving rules and your slippery slopes and your bullshit and your need to be tough on crime and your earnest concerns about society. Mind your own business, get your own house in order, stop fucking interns and little boys and cheating on your wives and on your taxes and being found dead wearing two wetsuits with a dildo shoved up your ass. Just mind your own damned business, and let people do what they must to deal with their own screwed up lives, and let people handle their pain the best way they can.

I am sick of the bullshit. Life is hard for most people out there, and damned near impossible for people in chronic pain. Quit making it worse, you allegedly compassionate sons-of-bitches.

By the way, I know about six different people that I could easily get marijuana from if I wanted it. No, you can't have their names and numbers, so don't ask.

Did you think the Clinton scandal was about the fate of the presidency, the fury of the press, the shape of democracy? Actually it's about Jonah Goldberg's career plans.

Jonah, agent fatale Lucianne Goldberg's 29-year-old son, entered the national stage when he listened to the Linda Tripp tapes with his mom. His 6,000-word opus on the subsequent media siege of his mother's New York apartment was cut to an amusing -- but trim -- 900-word item that ran in the New Yorker's Talk of the Town section.

A lesser man's 15 minutes of fame might have ended there, but Jonah Goldberg was just revving up.

He took to the air: "Nightline," "Larry King Live," "Today" to start; soon thereafter "Hardball," "Crossfire," "Politically Incorrect," "Equal Time," "Good Morning America" and "The NBC Nightly News." A debate in Slate and a contributing editorship at the conservative National Review followed. This month Goldberg began work on a full-length book about the Clinton affair and his personal involvement with it. The project, Goldberg says, may be a little "'Bonfire of the Vanities' type thing about stories peripheral to the scandal." Movie deals may follow the final book deal, he says.

Most people might find such activity would provide a sufficient outlet for the thoughts, insights and feelings of a bit player in the constitutional crisis that now faces the country. But not Goldberg, who recently quit his job to devote himself full-time to his Lewinsky-related activities.

Goldberg, who is vice-president of his mother's company, the Goldberg Literary Agency, makes no attempt to conceal his peripheral role in the scandal. "The fun part is my irrelevance," he says. He characterizes his ascent in purely capitalist terms. "I had information to barter," he explains, referring to the fact that he actually heard the Tripp tapes. "And when you have information to barter you become a clearinghouse for other information. People want to trade. At one point I had 12 reporters around the country calling me up, cultivating me as a source." As a result, Goldberg says he's made some friends.

I should point out that the above article was written back in 1998, the book still isn't out and Jonah is still irrelevant.

Not everyone agrees with one another all the time on the right. There are security conservatives, fiscal conservatives, liberty conservatives and of course, family values conservatives. Most of us are a little bit of each.

The swipe Carter took at Glenn Reynolds was odd. I was pro-gay marriage when the Senate was passing DOMA 89-11. Don’t ask, don’t tell never made sense to me. If you have to oppose sodomy to be a conservative, I flunk the test.

Don Surber, Sodomite.

Well, it doesn't exactly say that on his business cards, but it never hurts to advertise on the internets.

Special Ed goes Full Metal Weinstein and tells us what America (and by "America", he means, "Ed") would like to see on its silver screens:

We're not through the Valley of Ennui yet. For an industry that studiously avoided the war for five years, if you'll pardon the pun, Hollywood has given us a glut in 2007. Coming up will be Lions for Lambs, a film that trailers suggest features Tom Cruise and Robert Redford making speeches at each other. Redacted comes out in December, although its Cannes screening has already created controversy over Brian DePalma's heavy-handed treatment. John Cusack will indulge his well-known political views in Grace is Gone next month.

With all of these agenda films, one might think Hollywood could produce some balance. Why not make a movie about Sgt. Paul Smith, who gave his life for his comrades in Baghdad? A film about the heroism of Lt. Michael Murphy might make for a stirring motion picture. Americans might want to see the stories of Medal of Honor recipients. They obviously don't have much interest in sitting through lectures by Hollywood celebrities.

You know it seems like only yesterday when conservatives were touting the thrills and chills and "greatness" of The Great Raid which crapped out at $10 million, so you'll excuse Hollywood if they refuse to take a meeting with the simple salt of the earth folks who know a good movie if and when they leave the comfort of their home to go see one. Message movies rarely make big bank at the box office, that's reserved for vampires, kid flicks, and big budget explodey movies, so, really, let's quit pretending otherwise.

But if it's American heroism and sacrifice that Ed wants, we've got just the story for him. It's about an all-American boy who walks away from the glamorous life as a professional athlete to fight for his country after 9/11, who becomes disillusioned after we invaded Iraq . Later, while fighting in Afghanistan, he is killed by friendly fire and the Pentagon begins a massive cover-up because they still need him as symbol of the aforementioned American heroism and sacrifice. The working title is :

"This War Is So Fucking Illegal"

I predict boffo boxoffice, but only because it has cursing and explosions in it.

CAVUTO: Throw in a Fox News alert for you. It is being called the mother of all tax hikes. Democrats unveiling a trillion-dollar tax plan today, it includes a 4 percent surtax on people earning $150,000 a year. Now remember when a million bucks was considered rich only last year at this time? So are these tax hikes going to stop people from striving for success? Let's ask Fox Business Network anchor Cheryl Casone. We've also got radio talk show host Ben Ferguson and Ari Melber, a writer for The Nation. Cheryl, what do you think?

CASONE: Well, you know, it's funny, because when you talk about these tax hikes it makes it sound so easy. But $150,000, $250,000 when you're trying to get by in a lot of cities in America -- not all cities in America -- but that amount of money is not what it used to be...

Later

CAVUTO: Ari, I will get you in here, my friend, I just want to focus Cheryl on this point, and that is that the definition of the rich keeps changing. Unlike a lot of politicians, at least, you know, Charlie Rangel kind of put figures to that sentiment, unlike a lot of others. But I think that the concern is no presidential candidate has repudiated this, so I would assume that everyone welcomes it.

CASONE: Welcomes the actual -- that we tax people who are making $150-250,000?

CAVUTO: Right.

CASONE: If you've got a wife and kids, two kids, you're making 250, in a lot of cities across America that's not that much money.

Later Casone said that she was sad because she had no Jimmy Choos until she met a woman who wore Steve Maddens.

Rancho Bernardo residents began their journey back home with a surprise today.

They were stuck in traffic for two to three hours sitting in their cars at a standstill because of President Bush's visit to their community.

Police and the CHP had blocked off Interstate 15 ramps to West Bernardo Drive, which leads to the recovery center that was opened yesterday. Cars lined up for miles on the freeway.

"I'm glad he's coming but it's unfortunate to keep us all waiting," said Joy Fleming, who lives in North Oaks.

Fed up with waiting, Barbara Gandre said she needed to drive her 87-year-old mother home to pick up medication for her 89-year-old husband.

Her mother just recovered from pneumonia in September and the family did not have masks to wear over their faces. They sat in their car with the windows rolled down because they only had a quarter tank of gas left.

"I cannot run the air conditioning or I'll run out of gas," Gandre said. "I am sick of this," she said.

Here is Howard Kurtz getting spun by Franklin Foer. I love how the editors of The New Republic make themselves so accessible only to hapless journalists incapable of asking the most obvious, simple questions about the magazine’s appalling journalistic malpractice.

[...]

Someone send Howard a cluebat.

I guess Howard didn't defend her enough when she was stalking and attacking children.

I'm a liberal - no doubt about it -- who was impressesd with the thorough documentation and facts in this book. It seems obvious that those who rated it low ("Where are the facts?") didn't read the book. And one reviwer didn't review the book - but certainly reviewed the author. What's up with THAT? I've rarely seen a book with such clear documentation and surprising FACTS. Even a liberal like ME must take notice. I expect more of the press - liberal OR conservative - than what I learned from this informative author. Well written too - with only a FEW typos

You know, I don't think I've ever seen Peter Beinart so effusive before...

n July 2003, the AP reported: “PHOENIX (AP) — The FBI alerted law enforcement agencies last month that an al-Qaeda terrorist now in detention had talked of masterminding a plot to set a series of devastating forest fires around the western United States.

“Rose Davis, a spokeswoman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, told The Associated Press that officials there took note of the warning but didn’t see a need to act further on it.

“The contents of the June 25 memo from the FBI’s Denver office were reported Friday by The Arizona Republic. Davis declined to share a copy of the memo and an FBI spokeswoman in Denver didn’t immediately return a telephone call.”

California was not mentioned, but there is this report from CBS and the AP: “CBS News has learned a task force of agencies, including the FBI, ATF, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office and the California Department of Forestry will announce shortly that the massive Santiago Canyon Fire — which has caused an estimated $10 million in damage — is being officially declared an arson, and a $50,000 reward is being offered to find the arsonist.”

As always there are no losers...unless you lose out to Jonah Goldberg, in which case someone should put Clive Crook, A. Barton Hinkle , Dominic Lawson, Patrick McIlheran, and Amit Varma all on suicide watch.

Not that I would wish this on myself, but I don't have any dramatic stories about grabbing valuables (papers, my iPod, the dogs, my Brooks Robinson autographed baseball...probably some other stuff) and evacuating to sanctuary somewhere. For a lot of us who live in the central city part of San Diego, particularly by the coast, the fire is something that is happening out there. Every morning I've walked out to a light coating of ash on the ground, but blue skies up above. Looking to the east, and now to the south, you can see smoke that looks more like morning haze. This morning, for the first time, large flakes of white ash have started to fall, and if it weren't for the fact that the world smells like a wet ashtray, you would think it was the start of a light snowfall.

This is one of the reasons why the San Diego fires are so different than the devastation caused by Katrina in New Orleans. The devastation is not city wide. Therefore we have the resources and the luxury of being able to take care of those who need help, and things have run smoothly because of lessons learned from the Cedar fires a few years ago. Using what is going on down at Qualcomm Stadium with the debacle at the Superdome during Katrina is like comparing apples with ....stadiums.

So, please stop. It's not cultural. It's just a different situation in a different climate.

To which I say, in words that should be universally understood: Boo-freaking-hoo.

In the wake of eye-opening investigations by the New York Post and Los Angeles Times of more dubious foreign funny money flowing into Hill’s coffers, ethnic grievance organizations are stepping forward to condemn these stories as examples of “negligent journalism.” Yep. The newspapers are guilty of “negligence” because they actually broke news instead of covering it up.

Both papers uncovered dishwashers, cooks and other suspect Hillary campaign contributors in New York’s Chinatown, Flushing, the Bronx, and Brooklyn who were limited-income, limited-English-proficient and smellier than stinky tofu.

[...]

If it’s “ethnic profiling” to be extra-careful of Chinatown donors who can’t speak English, live in dilapidated buildings, have never voted, can’t tell Hillary Clinton from Hunan Chicken or simply can’t be found, then “ethnic profiling” should be the standard procedure of every responsible campaign.

To be clear, anyone with a funny non-Murican name or is two shades darker than Hugh Hewitt should be regarded with suspicion.

Every morning Malkin must scare the hell out of her kids when she stumbles into the bathroom, looks into the mirror, and screams and claws at scary foreigner looking back at her.

This applies even if Paul becomes the Republican nominee after Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, and that old mumbly guy from Tennessee are all caught in a bathroom stall making a facial humiliation video with Larry Craig. Even with all of that, Tom Tancredo would still come in fourth...

NASA's loss. Literature's gainDafydd ab Hugh (born October 22, 1960 as David Friedman) is a U.S. science fiction author.In the 1980s he served in the U.S. Navy training to be a Radar Intercept Officer, hoping to be selected to become an astronaut.

The major reason people tend to hate self-styled intellectuals is that so often, their thinking is divorced from ordinary human thought. They say or write things so truculent, while simultaneously so risible, that you wonder whether they need a sedative -- or a keeper.

He is speaking of recent Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing who wrote The Golden Notebook, book description as follows:

The Golden Notebook is the kind of novel every publisher waits for impatiently - a major work by a major talent. It is surely on of the most important English novels of our time.

Here in this labyrinth of overwhelmingly real stories is the full, complex story of a modern woman, Anna - a woman who will be talked about as were Ibsen's and Shaw's "new women" when the first appeared.

Anna tries to live with the freedom of a man. She is a writer, author of one very successful novel, who now keeps four notebooks. In one with a black cover she reviews the African experience of her earlier years. In a red one she records her political life, her disillusionment with Communism. In a yellow one she writes a novel in which her heroine relives part of her own experience. And in a blue one she keeps a personal diary. Finally, in love with an American writer, threatened with insanity, Anna tries to bring the threads of all four books together in a golden notebook.

With these various thread of her story - her life - Anna weaves a shatteringly vivid tapestry of contemporary concerns. Never for a moment can you doubt the validity of her testament. Documentary precision combines with deep narrative art to reveal the truth of being an intelligent woman. Her conclusions are likely to be debated for generations.

They were creatures seemingly spawned straight from the pits of Hell -- demons, zombies, fire-breathing imps -- all too horrifically close to the stuff of nightmare to be real. But they were. And on the inhospitable moons of Mars, Corporal Flynn "Fly" Taggart, Earth's last line of defence against a seemingly inexhaustible supply of alien warriors, beat them back almost single-handedly.

But Taggart discovers that the war had barely begun...for while he was fighting them on Mars, the hellish creatures had established a beachhead on Earth itself. Now, with the aid of a fourteen-year-old female computer genius, an unrepentantly Mormon sniper, and the best soldier in this woman's army, Fly Taggart must defeat the invaders -- and their treacherous human allies -- yet again...

To be sure, The Golden Notebook didn't contain a Mancubus....

...but the Nobel committee decided to let her slide since William Faulkner had already covered the Mancubus in his The Mancubi of Yoknapatawpha County trilogy.

I am but I've been busy with my real job as well as keeping an ear open to what is going on in town, most of which isn't good. Mainly I'm trying to get information on my mothers house and if it is still standing. According to Google maps, a house about twelve houses away from hers was on fire last night, so were still sitting on the edge. We'll see.

When I got home last night there wasn't any parking, which I take to mean that a lot of evacuated people are staying with friends and family in the neighborhood; the beach being the farthest point on land on which to run. This, of course, got me thinking where would I go should I get the dreaded reverse 911 call. All there is is sand and then water and, believe me, bassets don't float.

Here we find the Pentagon using $499,000 in Stars & Stripes money to get a little war-lovin' from Susan Davis International.

See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!O that I were a glove upon that hand,That I might touch that cheek!

And here we find find Michael Yon who is trying to rustle up $100,000 in funds so that he can provide the EmmEssEmm with the kind of war lovin' coverin' they can't get at home...and for free which would make him, like, the Candystriper of Combat.

And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anonDrums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,And being thus frighted swears a prayer or twoAnd sleeps again.

Before i get back to fireblogging something was mentioned in comments today (honestly, I should just let you guys do all the work and I'll just sit back and collect my SorosBucks) about the US Womens Soccer team that I would be remiss in not mentioning (see here and here if you feel like getting caught up). Ready? Okay.

Greg Ryan had always seemed curiously bulletproof, generally dodging the larger munitions in terms of media scrutiny. His highly favored team looked plodding in the Women's World Cup, but Ryan seemed to get a pass as all heads swiveled toward the Hope Solo fiasco.

When the same thing happens to the U.S. men's team -- such as at the last two World Cups in Europe -- the coach typically has been vilified in newspapers, on TV and in the combustible blogs.

Well, while Ryan escaped the media nicks and cuts, he couldn't escape the surgical slice from U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati, who has treated Ryan the same way he treated former U.S. men's coach Bruce Arena last year:

Gulati has declined to renew Ryan's contract as women's national team coach.

Ryan's deal ends on Dec. 31, 2007. His last match was Sunday, a disappointing 1-1 draw with a nation (Mexico) that has mostly been a punching bag for the powerful U.S. women's program.

In evaluating Ryan, Gulati said that U.S. Soccer weighed everything over the past two years, but gave additional weight to the preparation for and performance in the Women's World Cup. The move reflects U.S. Soccer's larger goal of keeping pace across the board, in men's and women's programs, youth and professional.

"It's clear that a number of [women's] teams around the world are playing at a much higher level than they had been previously," Gulati said.

Say what you will about how Ryan handled the Hope Solo response, but it really comes down to two factors:

He didn't bring a team to the World Cup ready and prepared to play their own game and they looked it.

Besides the obvious FUBAR decision to change goalies, he did a poor job of substituting late in the game when the team was down 2-0.

While some thought the Hope Solo benching and then expulsion from the team gave him cover, instead it just put a big spotlight on his poor decision making. And, as anyone who follows soccer will tell you, from coaching to playing, the difference between a win and a loss can come down to one bad decision in the course of ninety minutes. Greg Ryan made far too many. Here's hoping that the new coach will come in and shake things up from personnel to attitude.

One last soccer note, the L&T Casey's team has yet to win a match this season, but we like to say that they have one less win than Notre Dame's football team. Kind of glass half full...glass totally empty.

...for all the nice comments down below. The part of town we live in isn't really subject to what going on around the county since it's more of what I might call urban beach community with not a lot of combustibles about, if you discount all of the alcohol in the multitude of bars that surround us.

We're safe...the dogs are oblivious except for the sneezing when they go outside and we'll just have to wait and see how this plays out. Either way, thanks again.

Meanwhile Calitics is doing a terrific job covering this including a video of local TV/radio personality Larry Himmel covering the burning of his own home.

I know I said I wouldn't play citizen journalist, but some folks in comments are asking for more info because they have family here...so there you go.

Well, things aren't getting any better. The Scripps Ranch area that essentially burnt to the ground in the Cedar fire several years ago is being evacuated. Although the fire hasn't reached the coast, in Del Mar the smoke is so thick you can't see the ocean from the Coast Highway. It's like a gray dry fog of ash. They have been moving horses from the inland areas to the Del Mar fairgrounds and now all 1800 stalls are full. Unfortunately the smoke is channeling through that valley which also includes the Polo Grounds where more livestock is being sheltered. They've actually reached the point where they are sending people who have been evacuated to stay on the state beaches in North County tonight. I just heard that they are evacuating Fallbrook (north of San Diego...your avocados probably come from there) through Camp Pendleton and sending them to the state beaches in Orange County.

More when I can...

UPDATE: This one is going to be horrific when all the damage is done. It seems like the whole city is paralyzed by it. We think that my mothers house is still standing, my sister who lives in Leucadia by the ocean is getting ready to evacuate, I have an aunt and uncle who had to evacuate yesterday and they still don't know the status of their house, and I just spoke with the lovely and talented Casey in Hawaii and she said that her boyfriend (the one here in California) thinks his family may have already lost their home.

The last big fire we knew maybe three families affected. This time I can already think of over a dozen families that I know that have been evacuated.

Where I'm at in Point Loma the sky is blue but the air is crackling dry and everything smells burnt.

A pair of wildfires roared through San Diego County yesterday, killing one person, injuring at least 17 others and destroying an untold number of homes and businesses, overwhelmed fire officials said.

Mandatory evacuation orders were issued after 11 p.m. in the San Pasqual Valley, home of the San Diego Wild Animal Park. Officials said they had teams standing by to evacuate some its hundreds of exotic animals if necessary.

Updates here because it's getting worse. I-15 is now closed and now this is going to get ugly.

My mother's neighborhood in the Ranch Bernardo area has already been evacuated. Mom & cat (a Katrina refugee, no less) are fine. I live to the west, by the beach where the wind comes off the water, but the air has a scorched smell like a wet campfire that has been really strong since midnight last night. We're all safe, and by "we" I mean me and the dogs. The lovely and lucky mrs tbogg left for Hawaii yesterday morning so she's missing the all of the fun.

I'll try to not play citizen journalist today about this and leave it to the professionals.

One last thing; Happy Birthday, Mom. Hell of a way to spend it.

7:09 a.m.According to San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders: Everyone north of state Route 56, south of Del Dios Highway, west of Interstate 15 and east of Interstate 5 should evacuate. Qualcomm Stadium in Mission Valley is opening as an evacuation center.

There may be something to be said for avoiding face-to-face encounters with shaggy leftists — the cigarette smoke, for starters, and the jargon, and the complacent moral superiority. But in largely repealing the law on ideological exclusion in 1990, Congress seemed to suggest that Americans could be trusted to make those decisions for themselves.

The spirit of the old law, the McCarran-Walter Act, was revived after the Sept. 11 attacks. The USA Patriot Act of 2001, for instance, allowed the government to deny visas to people who had used their “position of prominence within any country to endorse or espouse terrorist activity.”

The government invoked that law in 2004 when it denied a work visa to Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss philosopher and Muslim intellectual. As a consequence, Professor Ramadan had to give up a teaching appointment at, in the words of The Guardian newspaper, “that hotbed of Muslim extremism, the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.”

In the three years preceding the denial, Professor Ramadan had visited the United States 24 times, lecturing at Dartmouth, Harvard and Princeton — and the State Department.

Three academic and literary groups sued the government last year over the denial, saying they had a First Amendment right to hear from Professor Ramadan. “There is something so dangerous in keeping writers out of the country because they don’t support the government,” said Francine Prose, the president of the PEN American Center, one of the plaintiffs. “Tariq Ramadan is the voice of reason, of logic, of toleration and common sense.”

After the suit was filed, the government changed its rationale for excluding Professor Ramadan, now saying that he had contributed about $1,300 to a charity in Switzerland from 1998 to 2002. That charity, later designated a terrorist organization by the Treasury Department, in turn made contributions to Hamas, which had already been designated one. Professor Ramadan’s second-hand contribution amounted to material support for terrorism, the government said.

Excluding Professor Ramadan “in no way restricts speech,” government lawyers wrote in a brief in the case in May. He remains free to say what he likes, they continued, and Americans remain free to hear what he has to say. Just not in person in the United States.

Steve Paulson: One of the big points of controversy is whether Islam itself can be criticized. And this comes up in so many different situations -- for instance, the furor over the Danish cartoons. Yes, it was insensitive for the Danish newspaper to run these caricatures of Mohammed. But on the other hand, Islamic activists deliberately whipped this up into a frenzy, even circulating some cartoons that were never published in that Danish newspaper. And all kinds of violence erupted throughout the Middle East as a result.

TR: Yes, I think Muslims should ask themselves what kind of image they are spreading with this attitude. I was in Morocco when it happened. From the very beginning, I said, "Take an intellectual critical distance. Don't react to this provocation. Yes, it's not your way to deal with the sacred. But it's a Western tradition just to laugh at religion. And you should understand that not all criticism means Islamophobia." There are legitimate criticisms of some Muslim behaviors and some principles that are not understood. You have to explain, you have to be part of the game, you have to be vocal, and not react emotionally to all this. I think the big problem is this kind of over-emotional reaction coming from Muslims, which is not acceptable.

By the way, it's really important to remember that in Europe, and even in the States, the reactions from Muslims were really reasonable. The strong reaction was coming from Islamic-majority countries. And not by accident. I think some governments and some groups were instrumentalizing this story just to get popular support. On the other side, you had far-right parties very happy to provoke this kind of reaction. So you have people on both sides trying to polarize the debate. And we should not fall into the trap. It's clear, as you are saying, that Muslims should be very, very open to criticism. We should tackle these questions and try to come up with sincere answers.

It's a pretty safe bet that by tomorrow morning all of the war apologist/dead-ender/chickenhawk bloggers will be out in full force to attack Valerie Plame over her 60 Minutes interview. Perhaps this will take them off of their incipient "Crucify Pete Stark" crusade. Who knows, maybe they'll divide and pretend to conquer and then exchange clumsy and awkward high fives afterwards.

Now we could rehash the whole affair when they claim she wasn't covert (even though she was) but honestly, you're not going to change the minds of people who think that the war is going swimmingly well and that every dead Iraqi was probably a terrorist anyway...including the children. Remember - these people are idiots.

Therefore just go buy the book because it is a simple fact of life that when you can't reason with a person, it's best just to tell them to "fuck off" and then go on your merry way.

Here's Josh delivering an in-depth and comprehensive MittPlan for what ails MiTTchigan:

....and here is Ann (Mitt wife #1 with a bullet) talking about the family

Maybe it's just me, but after she said "We have five boys. Five boys and ten grandkids..." I though for sure that she was going to tell us how to get out those tough ground-in stains using OxyMitt! for that whiter than white clean...

It's Sunday morning and, since it doesn't look like Saint Ronnie is going to rise from the dead, the Republicans have got themselves a new Messiah:

Louisiana elected its governor on the first ballot for the first time in recent memory, and the voters sent a message to the corrupt Democratic machine at the same time.

[...]

The state itself still suffers from the endemic corruption left behind by the Democrats who still dominate the state bureaucracies. If he can clean up Louisiana and return New Orleans to health and safety, Jindal may get a lot more attention in eight years as a Republican candidate for the White House -- and at 44, he could electrify conservative politics in 2015.

A principal architect of Iraq’s interim constitution, who resigned in August as one of the country’s top diplomats, has laid out a devastating critique of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the U.S. occupation, telling NBC News that, functionally, “there is no Iraqi government.”

The diplomat, Feisal Amin Istrabadi, said in his first interview since stepping down as Iraq’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations that “this government has got to go.”

When he resigned, Istrabadi, an U.S.-born lawyer who lobbied for the U.S. invasion and was the principal legal drafter of Iraq’s interim constitution, said he was leaving because it was time for fresh ideas after having served three years at the United Nations.

But Istrabadi made it clear in an exclusive interview with NBC News that he was dismayed by al-Maliki’s government and the U.S. occupation, saying the government was stocked with incompetent administrators who had helped bring about “chaos and instability.”

As pointed out in the comments below, Bruce Tinsley is back on the bottle again...and he's not one of those funny kind of drunks.

This makes no sense.I guess it's a chicken or the egg question: does he cartoon while he is drunk and this is the end result or does he start drinking heavily when he realizes that he is on deadline and this is the best he can come up with?